Page (paper)


A page is one side of a leaf of paper, parchment or other material in a book, magazine, newspaper, or other collection of sheets, on which text or illustrations can be printed, written or drawn, to create documents. It can be used as a measure of communicating general quantity of information and is used in various compound words and idiomatic expressions. In library science, the number of pages in a book forms part of its physical description.

Etymology

The word page comes from the Latin term pagina, which means, "a written page, leaf, sheet", which in turn comes from an earlier meaning "to create a row of vines that form a rectangle". The Latin word pagina derives from the verb pangere, which means to stake out boundaries when planting vineyards.

The page in English lexicon

Page can be used as a measure of communicating general quantity of information or more specific quantity. It is used in various compound words and idiomatic expressions.
Compound words:
  • Blank page: multiple meanings. "It's a blank page": An opportunity to start over a do something anew or for the first time. "They are a blank page": denotes either a person hard to read or easily swayed/vapid.
  • Page through: to skim something; to flip through something quickly.
  • : A book that is exciting to read.
Idiomatic expressions:
  • : important news or information.
  • : to be in agreement with someone.
  • : to copy or mimic the behavior of someone.
  • : to move on from an event. To stop thinking about something or to move forward.

    The page in library science

In library science, the number of pages in a book forms part of its physical description, coded in subfield $300a in MARC 21 and in subfield $215a in UNIMARC. This description consists of the number of pages, followed by the abbreviation "p." for "page". The number of pages is written in the same style as the numbering in each section. Unnumbered pages are not described.
For example,
describes a book with two sections, where section one contains 11 pages numbered using uppercase Roman numerals, and section two contains 2050 pages numbered using Arabic numerals; the total number of pages is thus 2061 pages, plus any unnumbered pages.
If the book contains too many separately-numbered sections, too many unnumbered pages, or only unnumbered pages, the librarian may choose to describe the book as just "1 v." when doing original cataloguing.